Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 01]

by Lady in the Mist

  21

  ______

  The storm was going to ruin her roses.

  Tabitha stood at the kitchen window and frowned at the streaks of rain down the multiple panes of glass. The scarlet of her roses shone against the gray background like blood, something she’d seen too much of during the night.

  Raleigh’s blood staining Dominick’s shirt, staining the cloth of the sofa, staining her hands. Head wounds always bled profusely and made them look worse than they were. She’d seen many in her life. Mrs. Wilkins’s had been the latest before Raleigh’s.

  The most recent and the worst.

  Tabitha shuddered in memory of that terrible wound. She’d tried to stitch it, but the woman had writhed so much in her pain, Tabitha couldn’t keep the skin together or aim her needle. In the end, it hadn’t mattered. Mrs. Wilkins died, and Harlan Wilkins set out on a trail of vengeance toward Tabitha.

  As Raleigh had Dominick?

  She couldn’t believe it. No, she didn’t want to believe it. Whether or not she could depended on whether or not she believed Raleigh had changed in his two years away. Lately she couldn’t seem to believe in anything, not Raleigh’s goodness, not Dominick’s honesty, not God’s interest in her.

  Weary, feeling as though she carried a load of bricks on her shoulders, Tabitha leaned her brow on the cold windowpane and wished for the sweetness of the roses, their fresh scent beneath her nose, their delicate flavor under her tongue.

  He looks at you like one of your candied flower petals. Raleigh’s words echoed in her head, and her cheeks grew warm despite the rain-chilled glass beneath her brow. Something about that remark was unseemly, yet her mind drifted to that brief kiss, stolen but not demanded back. Worse, not regretted. Worst of all, enjoyed.

  She couldn’t possibly think of marrying Raleigh and have such indelicate thoughts about another man. It was disloyal, a kind of treachery.

  And so foolish. If she feared Raleigh leaving again, she was unwise to care about another man who would most certainly leave. And Dominick was up to no good.

  So was Raleigh. She had no doubt of that. He wasn’t being honest with her. But she would try again. She would try to get Dominick to be honest with her about the night’s events. Surely one of them would be, with enough encouragement. A little bribery to soften them up? Food worked with men. At least the married women she knew said so.

  Her gaze strayed to the pantry holding the wooden box lined with precious paper and the even more precious candied violets from her efforts in May.

  Candied violets.

  Her cheeks warmed further as light, quick footfalls pattered into the kitchen.

  “Miss Tabitha, are you ill?” Patience exclaimed.

  Tabitha faced the maid fully. “No, why do you ask?”

  “You’re all flushed like you’ve been taken with a fever. And no wonder, coming in soaked like a drowned rat this morning.” Patience pulled out a chair at the table. “Sit yourself down and I’ll make you a nice cup of chamomile tea.”

  “Thank you. I should try to sleep.” Maybe the tea would soothe her, quiet her head. She turned to her maid and companion. “Patience, how did you bear to become a redemptioner after being a free woman most of your life?”

  “It was do that or starve after my husband died.” Patience spooned chamomile leaves into the teapot. “And you and your family made it possible to survive it.”

  “But do you miss home?”

  “Nearly every day.” Patience’s head bowed over the tea preparations. “Sometimes it’s like a hole in my heart to be gone.”

  “Then why don’t you return?” Tabitha began to pace the kitchen. “You’re free now.”

  “God wants me to stay with you.”

  Tabitha swung around. “How could you possibly know a thing like that?”

  Patience shrugged. “I just do. I prayed about it when I worked out my time and had a peace about staying.”

  “But . . . why would He do that to you?”

  “Because I promised to serve Him.” Patience faced Tabitha, a smile on her face. “And if keeping you safe and having someone to take care of you is how He wants me to serve Him, then it’s what I’m doing.”

  “But why me?”

  “’Cause you’re all alone. God loves you too much to let you stay alone.”

  “If He loves me so much, why did He cause me to be alone in the first place?” Tabitha lashed back.

  “I don’t know, Miss Tabitha. I wish I did.” Tears brightened Patience’s eyes. “But He has His reasons. We just have to trust Him.”

  “The pastor says I have to trust God to trust others. But I can’t. I—” The knocker pounded on the front door. “Oh, dear.” Tabitha headed to the door. “I’ll get it, Patience. It could be one of the Trowers.”

  Which would mean Raleigh had taken a turn for the worse.

  Heart racing, she strode to the door and flung it open.

  A bondservant who looked no older than fifteen all but fell into the entry on a gust of rain-laden air. “It’s her time, Miz Tabitha. Mrs. Parks’s pains been going all night and she said to come for you.”

  “I’ll just be a moment. Go into the kitchen for something hot to drink.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Leaving a trail of mud across the shining floorboards, he headed toward the warmth of the kitchen.

  Tabitha raced up the steps, burden and heart lifting at the prospect of bringing a new life into the world, a life that was welcome. Even if the father was at sea more than at home, this baby would be loved and cared for by mother, grandparents, siblings, and a host of other relatives. It was the best kind of birth, a far cry from Sally Belote’s lying-in.

  “Calm yourself, Marjorie.” Tabitha spoke in soothing accents. “Everything is all right.”

  “But Momma says it’s two weeks early,” the young mother cried between close contractions.

  Momma’s predictions were one reason why Tabitha had cleared the birthing chamber of female relatives—they’d been in the way. Their intentions were good, their presence a hindrance.

  “I say it’s not,” Tabitha responded, “and I am the midwife.”

  “Momma—” Marjorie groaned through another spasm of her body, then continued, “The last one was late. There’s just got to be something wrong.”

  “Everything is well.” Tabitha washed her hands yet again and examined the woman to ensure she still spoke the truth.

  She did. This lying-in was progressing as it should. The woman’s pains were powerful, but not too much so. The baby lay in the correct position. When necessary, Marjorie’s body dilated, and little blood showed.

  “We can’t predict these things too closely,” Tabitha assured her.

  “I can.” The response emerged in a wail as a more powerful contraction racked the mother’s body.

  “Oh?” Tabitha looked again. “Wonderful. I can see the head.”

  “My husband’s a sailor. He was home for only three days last September.”

  “Ah, yes, of course.” Tabitha straightened to smile at Marjorie. “That’s really all right then. It’s not too early.” She moved around to the side of the bed and wiped the other woman’s perspiring brow with a cool, damp cloth. “Only a few—”

  Marjorie’s shriek interrupted Tabitha. She scooted to the end of the bed without a show of haste and lifted the sheet. “Yes, I see the crown. Now push.”

  “I can’t. It—” More of the baby’s head appeared along with a gush of fluid. The shoulders caught. Marjorie screamed.

  “Easy, easy.” Tabitha never raised her voice in the birthing chamber, no matter what the circumstances. “Another push . . . There.”

  The wrinkled, red, slimy infant slid into her hands.

  “A beautiful boy.” Quickly, but with movements so practiced she looked as though she worked with deliberate slowness, Tabitha wiped mucous from the baby’s mouth and nose, then gave him a quick smack on his bottom to set him breathing. All the while, she kept up a flow of talk. “Look at
those shoulders. He’s going to be a big one. And those feet. My, are they ever big. There.”

  The baby’s first mewing wail filled the room. For a moment, Tabitha held the infant close to her heart, never failing to marvel at the perfect fingers and toes in miniature. Her heart filled. Her womb ached with emptiness.

  Then the mother, grandmother, and two of Marjorie’s sisters burst into the room. The mother whisked the baby from Tabitha’s hands and wrapped it in cloths warmed by the fire. One sister began to wipe Marjorie’s brow. The other sister poured a glass of water for the new mother, and the grandmother began to sing a psalm of praise. Love and joy filled the chamber as Tabitha took care of the least pleasant part of the birthing process—the afterbirth, cleaning up the new mother, and removing the oiled cloth spread out to protect the bed.

  Then she was done. After only three hours of work, her mission was complete. Marjorie slept, her mother, mother-in-law, sisters, and grandmother protecting her and the newborn, who slept beside her.

  “I’ll take my leave now.” Tabitha stood by the door, loath to interrupt the tableau. “If you have any difficulties, please send someone for me immediately.”

  “We will, Tabitha.” Mrs. Denton, Marjorie’s mother, followed Tabitha into the hall and paid her. “As always, you did well.”

  The baby began to cry.

  “I must go. Thank you.” Mrs. Denton vanished into the bedroom.

  Tabitha crossed the corridor to the room the ladies always provided for her. She washed and changed into the clean gown she always kept packed in her satchel. Then she hefted her bag and headed downstairs to let herself out the front door, to her solitary walk home, to the mist.

  It lay like a chilly blanket over the village, droplets suspended in the air. Though she heard other people walking, a dog bark, and some chickens cackling, she felt the mist settling on her like her earlier burden—the staggering pain of her empty arms—isolating her from the world around her. This was the part of her work that hurt, the aftermath of the joy of birth. The new mother took her infant from Tabitha’s arms. Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, friends surrounded both of them.

  And Tabitha went home alone.

  She could marry Raleigh. She could marry him tomorrow and go home to him—if he didn’t take it into his head to wander again and leave her alone. Too many men did. Burdened by family responsibilities, they headed out to sea or off to the wilderness in the West. Raleigh might do that. She didn’t yet trust him not to.

  She doubted that she needed to trust God to trust others. Not true. She needed Raleigh not to lie to her, or at least tell her all of the truth. Or she needed to start a new life somewhere else, where everyone didn’t know her past, her follies, her failings. She needed to be far away from Dominick Cherrett and his tug on her heart.

  She reached the square, and there he was, looming out of the mist, as he had that first night they met. He carried a basket in one hand and caught hold of her arm with the other.

  “The mermaid midwife far from the sea.” His grin flashed through the gloom. “What are you doing out and about on such a day?”

  “A lying-in.” Her voice was rough from so much talking over the past three hours. Her chest felt constricted, over full; the rest of her felt hollow enough to echo. “And what about you?”

  “Delivering extra eggs to the parsonage.” He moved his hand from her arm to her face. “Are you all right? You couldn’t have enjoyed much sleep.”

  “I didn’t, but there’s such joy in bringing new life into the world, my fatigue leaves me.”

  She was discovering a new joy too, one born of a gentle hand against her skin, a voice she would recognize anywhere, a soft question about her well-being. Simply being near this man, despite all she knew, despite what she suspected.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, wanting to prolong the interlude. “No trouble about last night?”

  “Ah, well, a bit.” He laughed without humor. “I got caught.”

  “Dominick.” She grasped his hand. “What happened? He didn’t . . . no, you wouldn’t be here. What happened?”

  “It’s too cold out here to talk. Can you come in for some coffee?”

  “If Letty doesn’t care.”

  “Not Letty. She loves to feed people.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and headed around the side of Mayor Kendall’s house. “I’ll wager you haven’t eaten.”

  “I had breakfast when I got in this morning.”

  “Morning was eight hours ago. My dear, you’re going to blow away on a strong wind if you don’t feed yourself better.” He paused to open the gate. “After you.”

  She hesitated. “Dominick, I’m happy to come in for some coffee, but I want to talk to you about last night.”

  “Of course you do.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders and guided her forward. “Are you going to rake me over some very hot coals, or am I forgiven?”

  “For what should I forgive you? You didn’t strike Raleigh, did you? Someone else was there.”

  “Ah, so you believe that now. Why?”

  “Because Raleigh dislikes you so much but won’t outright accuse you.”

  “But you still have doubts about me, don’t you?”

  “I—yes. You were still there.”

  “I was. I want to tell you why. I need to—” Quieting, he took several more steps, then stopped in the middle of the kitchen garden. “My dear, I want—” He stopped speaking again.

  “What is it?” She gave him an encouraging smile.

  “You. How I feel about you.” With the aroma of mint and thyme rising on the mist around them, he slid his fingers into her hair, tilted her head back, and kissed her.

  Unlike before, this was no mere brush of his lips on hers. It was long and deep and hungry. The world spun while she told herself to stop him. She dropped her bag and cupped his face in her hands while telling herself she should smack both his cheeks. She leaned toward him while telling herself she should run in the opposite direction.

  “There.” He raised his head but kept his hand in her hair. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Why did you let me?”

  “I—” She licked her lips, tasting something sweet like strawberries and cream. “I always feel lonely after attending a lying-in.”

  “I thought a birthing was a joyous occasion.” His tone teased her as his fingers toyed with her earlobe.

  She swallowed, trying to concentrate. “It is, but then I have to give the baby to the mother.”

  “I see.” He released her, leaving her colder than the mist. “Then you should marry Raleigh Trower.”

  “You kiss me, then tell me to marry another man?”

  She should have been angered. She wanted to weep.

  “I can’t marry you until I’m free, and that looks like it’ll be too far off.”

  Four years with only a hope and perhaps nothing at the end, waiting for another man, a man who would leave.

  “Yes, four years is too long.” Regret constricted her heart.

  “But perhaps it could be sooner.” He stroked the side of her throat. “If you help me.”

  She stepped back. “I won’t help you run away. The consequences are too great.”

  “And I would be a rascal to ask such a thing of you. But—” He glanced toward the house, where yellow light reached through the mist. “Kendall has left for Norfolk for a few days. May I call on you . . . in the daylight?”

  “Noon tomorrow. The tide will be coming in. We can do some crabbing.”

  “Letty would like that.” He kissed her again, lightly this time. “Trust me, please.”

  “That’s probably asking too much right now.” She smiled to soften her words.

  He didn’t smile back. “Perhaps you should forgive Raleigh for abandoning you at the altar, so you don’t tar us all with the same brush.”

  “I’m not—”

  But maybe she wasn’t trusting anyone, w
asn’t trusting God, isolating her heart from caring too much. Even falling for Dominick was a way to protect herself. He was impossible to form an alliance with, since she knew he would leave eventually.

  She had fallen for him, though. Fallen hard enough to hurt every time she looked at him, though that was such a pleasure.

  A shiver raced through her. “Perhaps I am.”

  “That’s my girl.” He retrieved her bag and gestured toward the house. “After you.”

  She preceded him into warmth and the fragrance of brewing coffee and baking sugar buns. Three pairs of eyes turned toward her, flashed to Dominick, then back to her. One of the identical blonde girls clapped her hand over her mouth and emitted a giggle. Tabitha realized why. Dominick had pulled down her hair.

  “I—I just came from a lying-in,” she stammered.

  “I encountered her while delivering eggs and cream, dear Letty.” Dominick kissed the cook on the cheek. “I hope this means something delectable for our supper.”

  “You should go to bed without any, naughty lad that you are.” She turned her green eyes on Tabitha. “Did he tell you what happened last night?”

  “I promised her coffee—and the tale before she walks home.” Dominick drew a chair out from the table. “Sit, Madam Midwife, and I’ll do the honors.”

  While the two young women watched and hid snickers behind their hands, he brought Tabitha a cup of coffee and a sugar bun. Before he sat, he gave the twins a stern look. “Don’t you two have dusting or something useful to do?”

  “No, Mr. Cherrett,” Dinah said. “Not with the mayor gone.”

  “What about your sewing?” Letty turned from the fire and a bubbling pot of something savory. “You have only a week until the festival.”

  “Ah, the fete.” Dominick sighed. “My dear Tabitha, I regret to tell you I am no longer allowed to go. It was part of my punishment.”

  “I’m so sorry. All the young ladies will miss you.”

  And she wouldn’t attend now either. She could go with Raleigh or on her own, but the idea of the festivities without Dominick there to flirt with her, lead her into a reel, or walk her home through the night, left her flat.